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The Sparrow by Ivan Turgenev

I was returning from hunting, and walking along an avenue of the garden,
my dog running in front of me.

Suddenly he took shorter steps, and began to steal along as though
tracking game.

I looked along the avenue, and saw a young sparrow, with yellow about its
beak and down on its head. It had fallen out of the nest (the wind was
violently shaking the birch-trees in the avenue) and sat unable to move,
helplessly flapping its half-grown wings.

My dog was slowly approaching it, when, suddenly darting down from a tree
close by, an old dark-throated sparrow fell like a stone right before his
nose, and all ruffled up, terrified, with despairing and pitiful cheeps,
it flung itself twice towards the open jaws of shining teeth.

It sprang to save; it cast itself before its nestling ... but all its tiny
body was shaking with terror; its note was harsh and strange. Swooning
with fear, it offered itself up!

What a huge monster must the dog have seemed to it! And yet it could not
stay on its high branch out of danger.... A force stronger than its will
flung it down.